Does Eliminating the Earnings Test Increase the Incidence of Low Income among Older Women?
dc.contributor.author | Figinski, Theodore | |
dc.contributor.author | Neumark, David | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2015-11-10T14:39:11Z | |
dc.date.available | 2015-11-10T14:39:11Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2015-09 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Figinski, Theodore, and David Neumark. 2015. "Does Eliminating the Earnings Test Increase the Incidence of Low Income among Older Women?" Ann Arbor, MI. University of Michigan Retirement Research Center (MRRC) Working Paper, WP 2015-325. http://www.mrrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/papers/pdf/wp325.pdf | en_US |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/115889 | |
dc.description.abstract | Reductions in the implicit taxation of Social Security benefits from reducing or eliminating the Retirement Earnings Test (RET) are an appealing – and in many cases successful – means of encouraging labor supply of older individuals receiving benefits. The downside, however, is that the same policy reforms can encourage earlier claiming of Social Security benefits, which permanently lowers benefits paid in the future. Depending on the magnitude of the effects on earnings and how households or individuals adjust their consumption and savings decisions, the net effect can be lower incomes at much older ages well beyond when people have retired. We explore the consequences of the 2000 reforms eliminating the RET from the Full Retirement Age to age 69 for the longer-run evolution of income, focusing in particular on the incidence of low income among older women, who are more likely to have become dependent mainly on income from their Social Security benefits. We find that the elimination of the RET increased the likelihood of having low incomes among women in their mid-70s and older – ages at which the lower benefits from claiming earlier outweigh possibly higher income in the period when women or their husbands increased their labor supply. | en_US |
dc.description.sponsorship | Social Security Administration | en_US |
dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
dc.publisher | Michigan Retirement Research Center, University of Michigan, P.O. Box 1248, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 | en_US |
dc.relation.ispartofseries | WP 2015-325 | en_US |
dc.subject | Social Security, RET, poverty, older women | en_US |
dc.title | Does Eliminating the Earnings Test Increase the Incidence of Low Income among Older Women? | en_US |
dc.title.alternative | Working Paper 2015-325 | en_US |
dc.type | Working Paper | en_US |
dc.subject.hlbsecondlevel | Population and Demography | |
dc.subject.hlbtoplevel | Social Sciences | |
dc.contributor.affiliationother | U.S. Department of the Treasury | en_US |
dc.contributor.affiliationother | University of California–Irvine, National Bureau of Economic Research, Institute for the Study of Labor | en_US |
dc.contributor.affiliationumcampus | Ann Arbor | en_US |
dc.description.bitstreamurl | http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/115889/1/wp325.pdf | |
dc.owningcollname | Retirement and Disability Research Center, Michigan (MRDRC) |
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